Columns

Health is a common denominator of Deanna Montoya’s Belen businesses. The Extreme Fitness gym, which she started seven years ago, and the Enchanted Smiles dental practice, which opened in September 2013.
The lifelong Belen resident operates both businesses, leading Zumba classes at the gym and working as a dental hygienist at Enchanted Smiles.
Montoya’s passion for fitness is obvious to locals — whether they’re the other instructors she employs to lead spin, rip and circuit training classes at Extreme Fitness — the dentist, receptionist and part-time hygienist who work at the dental practice, or the people who’ve benefited from community fundraisers Montoya has hosted to help pay her neighbors’ medical bills or raise awareness about cancer.
That enthusiasm was equally apparent to loan officers at Accion New Mexico, the nonprofit business lender that provided the commercial real estate loans that Montoya needed to open the gym and purchase the dental practice.
“In addition to a deep commitment to running a business and knowing what she was looking for in a commercial property, Deanna’s great character and passion for what she does was evident from the start,” said Justin Hyde, New Mexico market manager for Accion.

A politician did something unusual and refreshing a few days ago.
This was an action, something definite, not the spewing forth of a mumbo-juxmbo fog of words, not the filing of a bill, which indeed is a specific action but one only leading to process upon process.
Further, this action stands against one of those mindsets created by liberals to better our lives as defined by the liberals’ view.
I exaggerate some but not much, only in the sense that the action by Aubrey Dunn Jr., Commissioner of Public Lands, started a process that will have a real result.
For just about forever the State Land Office at 310 Old Santa Fe Trail in Santa Fe had a pump jack out front. In case anyone doesn’t know, a pump jack is a device supporting the piston pump drawing oil from a well. A pump jack is — horrors — industrial.
At some point, the pump jack was replaced by a brick head — a large head made of bricks. The head was part of the state’s public art program, a concoction based on the notion that spotting “art” around public spaces makes us feel better, sort of, I suppose, like painting overpasses. I don’t know when the public art thing started, but it has become part of the woodwork.

When I was 4, we lived on a farm in Maryland. One day, in a weedy pasture where sunflowers grew higher than my head to hide the trash that the locals threw there, and through which ran a drain, that at the time seemed to me a stream, I found in that drain a discarded empty bottle of Halo shampoo out of which spewed bubbles.
I thought those bubbles were beautiful as they caught, prismed and sparkly, in the weeds at the side of the seep. I called my dad. “Look! Look! See how pretty?” But he came and stopped me from picking up the bottle and told me it was trash and that people shouldn’t litter like that. It took only a moment of training to understand that what I thought was excellent was, when viewed through the maturity of right and wrong, a bad thing.
It took decades to train us, and laws to forbid it, but nowadays most people know it’s bad to toss trash from the car window, or to casually drop a wrapper, bottle, or McDonald’s bag in the parking lot. Only arrogant kids or ignorant adults litter. Trashing is not something caring people do.

For economists, mid-speech applause is unusual.
Jeffrey Mitchell got the treatment during his talk to the Economic Outlook Conference, presented by Albuquerque Business First, a weekly newspaper. Mitchell is the newish director of the Bureau of Business and Economic Research at the University of New Mexico and runs UNM’s forecasting model.
I suspect that the applause reflected the frustration of the several hundred people in the audience, presumably business types, with the state of the New Mexico economy and the paucity of proposals for real action beyond tinkering at the margin.
Audience approval came when Mitchell said, “It’s a matter of where we are uniquely strong and build on that.”
In a post-conference email exchange with Mitchell, I said, “I believe we do not know and/or understand our various strengths and specialness. A detailed look at the state and its various economies might provide insight leading to policy actions that might move us.”
Mitchell replied, “Perhaps you’re right that we’re not clear on makes the state special. But I strongly believe that any long-term improvement in the state’s economic situation must begin by addressing this question. And I think that people are beginning to recognize this.”

Feral cats, unlike strays, have been born and raised in the wild, or have been abandoned and must revert back to their primitive ways in order to survive.
Most of these cats, fearful of humans and too skittish to be handled, often live in groups and take refuge wherever there is available food and shelter.
Because of this, they are unfortunately subject to harsh weather conditions, starvation, or diseases and sometimes even eradicated by humans in attempts to deplete the feral cat population.
Here is a few ideas on what you can do to help these undomesticated cats:
You will be able to tell if you have come in contact with a feral cat rather than a stray by their standoffish and notably quiet demeanor. They will most likely keep their distance from you and scamper off when approached.
However, this shouldn’t deter you from trying to help.
Feral cats have a great chance of survival if they live in a group, or colony, maintained by a dedicated caretaker. This means providing regular feeding and proper shelter, as well as spay/neuter services. A popular and effective way to do this is the Trap-Neuter-Return method, or TNR.

Benjamin Franklin said, “We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid.”
Here in America, we can proudly claim that we have a lot of hard working people!
Consider the “I were born igorent, and dang if I ain’t gonna stay igorent” folks whose rendition of the Constitution reads, “from my cold dead fingers.” These deep thinkers of domestic sociology hold that the best offense is a soft-tipped defense.
Utah has been working very hard to lead the pack, with 70 percent of its citizens believing that creationism should be taught in public schools. Of course, the evolution-creation debate can get pretty violent, and so it only makes sense to arm the teachers with facts, data, well-aged scientific research (usually from the 1300s), and laser-equipped 15-round Berettas.
I know, I know. Utah would never act so irresponsible as to issue Berettas to its teachers! That would be ridiculous! After all, the State Firearm is a Browning M1911.
You’ve got to admire the work ethic of a state that spends tax dollars to vote in a State Firearm.
Of course, it’s difficult to tell if they’re serious. Their State Fossil is the Allosaurus, a dinosaur that roamed early America three or four thousand years ago.

As the author of a 1998 book, “Talking So People Will Listen,” I perked up when an article within an issue of The Atlantic earlier this year was brought to my attention: “How to Talk About Climate Change So People Will Listen,” by Charles C. Mann — which offers some noteworthy insights.
Mann is obviously a believer in anthropogenic (or man-made) climate change, making his observations all the more interesting.
Much of his essay is spent deriding the left for its unrestrained rhetoric that it uses to “scare Americans into action.” He says “the chatter itself, I would argue, has done its share to stall progress.”
Within his argument is some history and context that is illustrative for those who see climate change as cyclical — something natural that has happened before and will happen again, rather than something that is new, scary and human-caused.
Those of us who believe the climate changes, but that human activity is, certainly, not the primary driver, struggle to understand the cult-like following of alarmists like Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org.

Whether you plan on getting a new puppy or just want Fido to finally nail the “sit” command, it is never too late to begin training your dog.
Here are some tips for having a well-behaved pooch just in time for the holiday season.
“The first few commands are usually basic obedience commands such as sit, down, stay, walking on leash and most importantly, to come when called,” said Elizabeth Bachle, a technician at the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences pharmacy and an agility instructor at Puppy Love training. “These are a great foundation to training more complex behaviors and can keep your pet out of harm’s way.”
New puppy owners often get caught up in the excitement of having a four-legged friend to play with and forget that training them early on is most effective.
However, don’t believe the saying that “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” Even your loyal, more seasoned companions can improve on current techniques or learn new skills.

New Mexico’s Senate Majority Leader Michael Sanchez, arguably the most powerful elected Democrat in the state, recently laid out some of his views on the upcoming legislative session.
He claimed to support “compromise,” but it is clear that what he really means is that he has no plans to support reforms that will boost New Mexico’s struggling private sector economy.
Sanchez’s intransigence is not surprising given that he and his allies have controlled New Mexico’s Legislature for many decades and see the recent GOP takeover of the House as a temporary loosening of control as opposed to a decisive break. That big-government ideology, by the way, has driven New Mexico to the bottom of most good lists and the top of most bad ones.
Sanchez, despite his rhetoric of compromise, has stated firmly that he opposes “right to work.” On the other hand, he supports a new $50 million “closing fund” designed to bring new businesses to our state.
His positions are not surprising for two reasons. Despite both policies ostensibly being “pro-business,” right to work will cost zero tax dollars, reduces the fundraising power of a key special interest group, and has reams of studies showing that its effectiveness.

If a vision for the state and the articulation of action for confronting our myriad deep structural problems appeared at the recent New Mexico Tax Research Institute legislative outlook conference, it slipped out the door faster than it entered.
Ferreting out a vision will be further obstructed by the newest job performance report, which appeared three days after the TRI meeting.
From November 2013 to November 2014, a seasonally-unadjusted 14,700 new wage jobs appeared, a 1.7 percent increase that is the best in a long time.
The growth is “close to the long term average,” said Tom Clifford, Department of Finance and Administration Secretary. I suspect that the happy news will divert the existing slight attention to matters such as our pathetic labor force participation, which is toward the top of the structural problems.
What, me worry?
In another venue, the December Consensus Revenue Estimate, reality begins to intrude. The report cites University of New Mexico’s Bureau of Business and Economic Research, which “points out that New Mexico is the only state that has experienced so weak a recovery and questions whether the state’s weak performance is a cyclical, temporary phenomenon or if it indicates a more troubling structural change in the state’s economic competitiveness.”